Department of Computing and Immersive Technologies Research & Enterprise Activities​​​​

Research and Enterprise Activities​​​​

The University of Northampton's research in computing takes place within the Advanced Technologies Research Group (ATRG) and the Science and Technology Research in Pedagogy (STRiPe) Group.
As well as supporting high quality undergraduate and postgraduate education in computing, members of this team are proud of their ability to successfully work with businesses, the public sector and academia. There is a strong interdisciplinary nature to the research and staff work with other parts of the School of Science and Technology​, the University, and external partners.
Particular areas of expertise include graphics, mobile device application development, problem-solving and computing in healthcare, networks, software engineering, serious games and advanced web systems

Summary of the expertise groupings

1 Wireless Networking, Mobile and Systems
This has been a long-term strength in the Department, with both research and consultancy activities in this area. Expertise in wireless communications, embedded systems, networking and robotics all are within this this grouping.
Resources
• CISCO networking lab and the Department is a CISCO accredited Academy.
• Academic partner in the Weightless Wireless Standard group.
• Embedded Systems lab based around microcontrollers
• Swarm robots

2. Science and Technology Research in Pedagogy
This is a formally recognised Research Group in the University and is also one of the biggest in terms of members. Though it is based in the Department of Computing and Immersive Technologies, it has members from across the School and external to the School and was set up to bring together activities in innovative teaching practice that relates to teaching STEM subjects.
Resources
• Small teaching robots.

3. Software Engineering and High Performance Computing
This area is growing both in terms of staff research and consultancy. Examples included
• PhD studentship with GE Aviation on model-based software design.
• Mobile App developed for both small and large organisations (for example Northampton County Council).
Resources
• Eye Tracking software for usability testing of software, video, electronic promotional material and websites.
• Software for developing mobile applications.
• High Performance Computing via NVision server cluster

4. Games Technologies and Visualisation
The use of games and games technology to solve problems is another area of strength within the team.
Resources
• Portable virtual reality equipment
• Haptic devices for providing force feedback
• Use of CAVE via NVision

Examples of recent projects include:

Developing material to refine skills in computing and other areas in year seven, eight and nine students in schools

The data was analysed using the software VOSviewer - http://www.vosviewer.com/ free software for visualising networks. Differences in colours represents, the clusters of publications with those authors picked out by the software. The relative size of the circles is the relative number of publications listed; so for the two biggest circles/hubs it relates to 55 and 34 publications in this time period. Some relatively new authors, to the University but not to research, explains some of the 'islands' and the number of publications within it - it only reflects publications whilst at the University of Northampton.

To dig a little deeper, going to look at the two biggest 'hubs' through their NECTAR records, so potentially going …

Taken from: http://www.northampton.ac.uk/news/computer-lecturers-research-helps-improve-the-next-generation-of-technology/
A computing lecturer at the University of Northampton, who is researching into how the efficiency of our everyday devices, such as mobile phones, can be improved, has been awarded the best paper at two recent conferences.
Dr Michael Opoku Agyeman has written several journal papers focusing on how the next generation of technology can meet the ever increasing demands from consumers. He was invited to present his work at the 19th Euromicro Conference on Digital System Design in Cyprus and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ 14th International Conference in Paris.
Part of his research concentrates on whether several processing elements can be incorporated on a single chip, known as System-On-Chip, to improve the efficiency and speed of the computing systems that we use every day, from mobile phones to video-game consoles and even medical equipment…